The township of 12 people
which sells four million
cans of beer a year
Scotland
in the
heat
The Midgie
Our regular reader may have noticed that the Midgie is so spelled, rather than by the more conventional form, the Midge.
The Midgie wishes to make it clear that he was born Midge. The ‘i’ was added, however, not on the suggestion of the Midgie’s publisher, nor even to distinguish the Midgie from the then well-known popular singer, ‘Midge’ Ure.
The Midgie’s change of name was the result of a curious epiphany – ‘defining moment’ as it is often called these days – during a convivial late-night session in Yates’s wine bar (to your right as you enter the airport). In other words, it was done just for the hell of it.
Furthermore, the Midgie welcomes original quotations of a Scottish nature to place in the cavity on the wall of the Scottish Parliament which will soon be vacated. ‘Alex Salmond always held on to his braggadocio’ (A Cochrane) is the first submission, and a good one too.
Fancy foreign words or phrases disallowed.
Carpe diem! Nominate your favourite now!
Islay’s Scotland
Heilanman’s Umbrella, Glasgow
They’ve not only got the
man’s name wrong. They’ve
got the wrong man
Kenneth Roy
Sadly, however, we are no sooner resolving one Edinburgh literary scandal than another materialises on the very wall of the Scottish Parliament. In yesterday’s edition, Edwin Moore expressed his disgust that Alasdair Gray had been mis-spelled Alisdair in the engraving below his celebrated quotation: ‘Work as if you live in the early days of a better nation’. It is one of those sayings vulnerable to parody. Stuck for copy one morning, having arrived at the office after a drenching, I amended it to: ‘Work as if you live in the early days of a wetter nation’. It seemed quite funny at the time.
It is indeed disgusting that Alasdair Gray’s name has been mis-spelled Alisdair. If we cannot trust our masters to check a simple spelling before they set the stonemason to work at some cost to the rest of us, what can we trust them with? The proverbial piss-up in a brewery would seem beyond their capabilities, to say nothing of the small matter of running an independent state.
As it happens, it is worse – very much worse – than this.
After yesterday’s edition went online, the following email arrived from Michael Elcock in Canada:
Not only have they mis-spelled Alasdair Gray’s name on the wall of the Scottish Parliament, the quote on the wall was actually made by Dennis Lee. I believe Alasdair has given up pointing this out. He only used the quote – properly attributed at the time – in an epigraph to one of his books.
So, let’s get this straight. Not only have they got the man’s name wrong. They have actually got the wrong man. It appears that no one thought to verify with Alasdair Gray that this was his saying. If they had, Mr Gray would have disabused them at once.
Next question: who is Dennis Lee? Born in Toronto in 1939, he is a distinguished poet, teacher, editor and critic. He is also a children’s writer, working – in his own words; and they really are his own words – to ‘free Canadian children from a colonial mentality by creating poems rooted in the words and activities of their everyday lives’. Among his works of non-fiction is ‘The University Game’, ‘in which he calls for freedom from inhibiting educational institutions’.
The admirable Dennis Lee does sound like one of us. Unfortunately, he is not one of us. And his name is not Alasdair Gray. Or even Alisdair Gray. It is, I suppose, pointless to suggest that the Scottish Parliament should remove the engraving in question. I predict that it will stay there, a tiny caricature of so much that is wrong with Scotland, until they decide to pull down the building and start again; an event all too possible in the not entirely distant future.
I hesitate to give you any more grief in this short column, but I have just noticed that, on the sign outside Milne’s Bar, they have given Sydney Goodsir Smith a knighthood.
Kenneth Roy is editor of the Scottish Review
